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AN ADDRESS 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


JEE’FERSON SOCIETY 


OF THK 


[UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIAj 


AT ITS 


ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION, 


HELD IN THE PUBLIC HALL, 


/ 


APRIL 14. 1856. 





BY OSCAR STEPHENSON, 

Of Southampton County, Va. 





[Published by order of the Society.] 


RICHMOND: 

WILLIAM H. CLEMMITT, PRINTER 

1856 . 











































AN ADDRESS 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


JEFFERSON SOCIETY 


OF THE 


UNIVERSITY OE VIRGINIA, 

AT ITS 

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION, 


HELD IN THE PUBLIC HALL, 


APRIL 14, 1856. 


BY OSCAR STEPHENSON, 

% i 

Of Southampton County, Va. 



[Published by order of the Society.] 


RICHMOND: 

WILLIAM H. CLEMMITT, PRINTER. 

1856 . 









*) 











.tsS 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, ) 

April 19th, 1856. $ 

Oscar Stephenson, Esq., 

Dear Sir :—The Jefl'erson Society have appointed the undersigned 
a Committee to tender you their thanks for the very able manner in which you represented 
them on the 14th inst., and to request a copy of your eloquent address for publication. 

Hoping that there may be no considerations to prevent your compliance, we remain, with 
sentiments of high esteem, 

Yours, &c., 


W. G. Brawner, 
A. W. Cockrell, 
Jas. Wm. Morgan. 


UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, > 
30th April, 1856. $ 

Gentlemen:— 

I have had the honor to receive your note of the 19th inst. The silent appro¬ 
bation of my fellow-members of the Society would have been my richest reward. Guided, 
however, from the first, solely by their wishes, I yield once more to their solicitation, and here¬ 
with transmit, for publication, a copy of the Oration so hastily prepared in moments snatched 
from regular study. 

Permit me, gentlemen, to express my grateful appreciation of the flattering manner in which 
you have made known the wishes of the Society, to assure you individually of my warm per¬ 
sonal regards, and to unite with you in a prayer for the continued success of the Jefferson 
Society. May the lamp of student sympathy be kept burning at its altar. 

I have the honor to be yours, &c., 


Messrs. Brawner, Cockrell and Morgan, Committee. 


Oscar Stephenson. 









ADDRESS. 


Far from the clamor of the moving multitude, toil¬ 
ing on in pursuit of thought, the hum of the busy world is 
unheeded, and its ceaseless commotions unfelt by the stu¬ 
dent of letters. Amid his visions of renown, however, for 
the future genius and learning of his country, he could not 
withdraw himself entirely, if he so desired, from a contem¬ 
plation of that external machinery—solemnly significant in 
its meaning—under which he lives. For human nature pre¬ 
sents us with a surpassing scheme of adjustment. Its parts 
unite in the same mysterious sympathy, linking together by 
its electric wires every subject within the far reaching em¬ 
pire of mind. If man he elevated in the ranks of created 
being by the exalting impress of intellectuality, the voices 
of nature as well find their response in the delicately con¬ 
structed tissue of his heart. And if it he true that ever and 
anon in his pilgrimage, the soul goes out of its own accord 
in* silent worship of the high priest of this temple of earth, 
while the spirit hopes ere long to bask in the sun-light of a 
better world, it is equally true that man has a relative posi¬ 
tion in the same All-wise economy, was appointed for 
society, and without it must fall from that throne upon 
which he has been placed by no human hand. 

The usages, manners, and customs of the Anglo-Saxon 
have always been marked by the all-pervading spirit of 
freedom. Art with no splendid monument crowns the lowly 
grave of the great Alfred, but nature caught the spirit 
of his dying words, and breathed it into the soul of the 



6 


ADDRESS. 


nation to live forever as his immortal epitaph: It is Jit, said 
he, that the English people should he as free as their oivn 
thoughts . Long before and long afterwards, where’er the 
eye can trace them, •whether in the dark forests of Germany, 
imprisoned in the county of Kent,—strangers in their ow r n, 
or a strange land,—or fighting in the vanguard of civiliza¬ 
tion at the present day, this same race of ours has ever been 
characterized by an undiminished hatred of tyranny, and a 
ceaseless restlessness under oppression. But the mind has 
been so constructed that by its own action, steady and 
gradual through long ages, great ideas are acquired and de¬ 
veloped. And it is so, that one principle after another has 
been brought out of the mine of thought, until man’s slum¬ 
bering nature aroused, the world has been startled by some 
dazzling truth. A theatre upon a new hemisphere was 
opened for the performance of the most splendid piece in 
history, although, while yet the first act performed, the 
brilliant outset of the American revolution was threatened 
by a dark and hopeless catastrophe. There was hope and 
fear, sunshine and shade, triumph and disappointment, and 
distrust with its coming darkness, but finally, thank Heaven, 
the great work was achieved, and the struggling develop¬ 
ment confirmed. The inner principle of freedom of the 
new-born nation received its earthly dress, and the second 
written constitution known to man was entered upon the 
life-roll of time. 

I come to you to-night, called by too partial suffrages to 
speak of the mechanism of this grand production, of ihe 
beauty of its original creation, the symmetry of its propor¬ 
tion, the harmony of its movements, and of the crowning 
glory of its achievements. I come to speak of the inner life 
of a people as portrayed in the government that represents 
them—of those enduring principles which by acting and 
re-acting upon their social tendencies are best calculated to 
produce the balances of society, and thus hand down to the 
latest unimpaired the great balances of the Constitution. 

A century ago, a few British colonies, feeble, disunited, 
breathing but not living, were scattered along the shores of 


ADDRESS. 


1 


the Atlantic ocean within the present limits of this great 
republic. Behind them lay a frowning wilderness, from the 
recess of which savage tribes trained to war were ever ready 
to spring forth upon their inhabitants without warning and 
without mercy. On the North and far away to the South, 
Spain and France, enemies and hereditary rivals of Great 
Britain, had planted settlements, willing too to join with 
the Indian warrior in his work of carnage and death. And 
such was America crushed beneath the tyranny of the 
colonial system, and still languishing under the influence of 
that connexion of civil with ecclesiastical power, degrading 
everywhere to religion, and dangerous to liberty. But the 
fierce persecutions of the reigns of Elizabeth and the 
Stuarts had scattered those principles which they were 
designed to exterminate to the winds, on which they were 
borne into every clime. The oppressed and persecuted, 
exiled from their own land, here upon a new continent built 
their fires, and around their hearth-stones they gathered 
their all and called it home. Here they worshiped God, 
and trained their children to fear Him. Look at America 
now, united, powerful, prosperous, free; without a master, 
without an enemy, without a rival. Mountain barriers have 
been scaled, and that frowning wilderness has yielded to the 
westward course of the star of empire. Thousands of miles 
away upon the Pacific coast, the heart of the Virginian in 
his new home fondly turns to its Mecca-shrine—the Old 
Dominion, even upon this birth-night of Jefferson. Her 
territory has spread from ocean to oeean, her manufactures 
extended with a rapidity hitherto unparalleled, her com¬ 
merce whitens every sea, and visits every crowded mart,— 
industry, enterprise, honor, fame in every pursuit of life are 
all unshackled, open to all, free as the very air we breathe; 
and upon that corner-stone laid so tremblingly eighty years 
ago, by the architects of liberty, a temple has been reared 
with the deep waters of earth for its vestibule, a continent 
its foundation, heaven its dome, and freemen for its wor¬ 
shipers. 

Adopting the sublime sentiment of the first message that 


'8 


ADDKESS. 


trembled upon the wing of the lightning in these United 
States, truly may we exclaim: What a work hath God 
wrought. 

Montesquien, with the eye of the practised statesman, had 
pointed out somewhat the defects of that British model upon 
which America was called upon to improve. It was estab¬ 
lished that a division of power, compatible with enlarged 
rights of citizenship was essential to a free government. 
The burning words of patriotism and chivalrous deeds of 
heroism of the ancient time had been but the promptings of 
man's nobler and higher nature in an uncorrupted age. 
Slowly but surely concentration of too much power in one 
direction defeated the very object of civil establishment. 
Tyranny robbed man of his dearest rights and crushed 
society under civil oppression. The ideal standard of 
government was at length faintly conceived, but the passing 
conception of beauty suggested by some material form in 
nature, giving to man a foretaste of heaven, is too etherial 
to be expressed perfectly, even by the artist’s hand. The 
judicial, legislative, and executive departments here were 
kept so far distinct as human machinery could accomplish. 
The balances were designed to promote the harmonious 
action of each in its own proper sphere. 

The discordant elements of society, like those of one’s 
own nature, can never be brought into perpetual harmony. 
Opposition determined and bitter, oftener imaginary than 
real, will at times spring up. And while it is true that the 
breach would be lessened by a more intimate acquaintance 
with the elementary principles of political economy, and a 
more general diffusion of a liberal public spirit, yet polit¬ 
ical parties will always exist under a free government until 
men cease to entertain different opinions on subjects dissim¬ 
ilar, it may be, in their nature and results; or, until free¬ 
men, content to follow blindly, forget to think and act for 
themselves. The vesting of the powers of the general 
government in the popular branch of the legislature, thus 
giving one-fourth of the states absolute control over the 
rest, would have erected an engine of oppression at first 


ADDRESS. 


9 


surpassed by none of preceding ages. The only alternative 
left to give a full expression to the will of the governed, 
was the expedient of representation according to numbers 
in the lower house of congress. But this was not enough 
to fill out the conception of a free representative govern¬ 
ment—a new device was introduced—a higher controlling 
power to clothe the enactment of the legislature with his 
approbation—neither fearful in itself, nor necessarily op¬ 
pressive in its operation. It was simply to require a larger 
majority in congress to pass a law, which, in the presi¬ 
dent’s opinion, and according to his views of the Constitu¬ 
tion, could not prove beneficial to the whole country. 
Without this how could there have been a division of 
power? How could each have judged for itself of the ex¬ 
tent of the portion allotted to its share, or guarded its exer¬ 
cise with wakeful vigilance ? 

The same solemn lesson is taught alike in the changing 
phases of history, and by the passing observation of the 
passions of the multitude to-day. Impulse is oftener acted 
upon than reason, and alas, not a few are there, who, like 
Achilles, forget in their offence, the warning voice of duty. 
In the day-life of the people at home and abroad is ex¬ 
hibited a restless haste, which, coupled -with the desire of 
gain, has too much signalized a country which ought to be 
to the world an example of a new and brighter era. Legis¬ 
lation has not escaped the contagion of this spirit. This 
was foreseen, and hence the interposition of the veto-power, 
says the South Carolina statesman, while it should be exer¬ 
cised with great caution and deliberation, requires a greater 
body of constituency to put the government in action against 
it—another key to be struck to bring out a more full and 
perfect response from the voice of the whole people. 

Trial by peers secured to the English people by the 
guarantees in the Great Charter had proved inefficient for 
the protection of the rights of person and property, while 
the sovereign remained the “ fountain of justice.” The 
idea of a well ordered judiciary was to be developed here. 
Into the hands of the federal courts, however, was com- 
2 


10 


ADDRESS. 


mitted the power defined, limited, mapped down, of passing 
in review the constitutionality of a law of congress. No 
useless design was manifested in this judicial investiture. 
It was no vain thing to clothe the president with the veto- 
power; for his powers, be they as great as politicians say, 
are as likely to be encroached upon as he himself to tres¬ 
pass upon the sphere of other departments. And if in the 
history of the country the power has been abused, grossly 
abused it has been, is it not better to permit the Constitu¬ 
tion to remain as it is, than by drawing into the vortex of 
political warfare everything that can suggest a shade of 
difference, under the name of improvement, to destroy the 
whole of the magnificent edifice ? 

Glorious as was the foreshadowing of this scheme, it was 
but the brilliant prelude to the consummation. They were 
sovereigns who had met to unite in the same offering for 
the cause of civilization and the progress of man. They 
saw that the freshness of early association would fade in 
the oft-repeated combat—that pretended worshipers would 
profane the temple with sacrifices in the name of right. 
As the last crowning act in the drama, they throned them¬ 
selves within the walls of the capitol as sentinels upon the 
watch-towers of freedom. The visible presence of the voice 
which had called the system into existence was established 
in the senate chamber. There state meets state upon the 
broad basis of equality. Whatever may be the mystery of 
state-sovereignty, no myth exists there. The North, and 
the South, and the West met there once concentrated in 
those great lights fixed now in the political firmament 
above us. Clay, whose eloquence like “ the tone of some 
god-like instrument sometimes visited by an angel’s touch, 
and swept anon by all the fury of the raging elements,” was 
wont to subdue all opposition; the veteran patriot, Web¬ 
ster, the Colossus of the senate ; and last but not least, the 
orator, statesman and sage blended in one—Calhoun—the 
lion-hearted southerner, have all fallen and been borne to 
the tomb, but the states are there now—there enthroned in 
sovereignty. 


ADDRESS. 


11 


Such, then, feebly and imperfectly sketched are the pri¬ 
mary balances of the Constitution to be preserved and 
handed down unimpaired by the approbation of society, 
intelligent , refined and pure. There is need of a reformation, 
and it must begin in the homes of the people. We must 
look elsewhere than to the national capitol for hope, until 
senators and representatives cease to make a gambling den 
of Pennsylvania Avenue, and arouse themselves to a sense 
of the obligation resting upon them. How unworthy the 
country that the men she honors with her confidence should 
disgrace her in the bar-room, and the brothel, while the 
whole world is asking an influence, and an example.— 
Have they drank at those pure constitutional founts, and 
breathed again the spirit which animated the fathers of 
this republic ? Ah! the Constitution should be printed in 
pamphlet form and placed in the hands of every school-boy 
in the land, not to inculcate the tenets of this or that party, 
but to impress upon his youthful mind the leading princi¬ 
ples of constitutional right. The evils and estrangements 
of the present day have flowed not from the instrument but 
from a violation of its spirit, and a perversion of its letter ; 
a disposition is manifested to go beyond it, to lose sight of 
it, to look for something new in the so-called social theories, 
the mush-room growth of a night. The construction at¬ 
tempted to be placed upon a clause in that immortal docu¬ 
ment [Declaration of Independence] would alter the action 
of God’s laws, and the operations of Divine wisdom. No 
process of reasoning, no mere artificial organization can 
destroy the indestructible elements of human nature.— 
u All men are created free and equal,” was the embodiment 
of the error of Sydney and Locke, whose figment of phi¬ 
losophy has long since been given to the winds. The 
colonies, as Mr. Calhoun said, separated from England not 
because all men were created free and equal, but because 
their rights were invaded, and their petitions for redress 
rejected. Inequality is written upon everything, upon the 
heavens above and the earth beneath us. Vain is the at¬ 
tempt to give to this dogma the sanction of him whose 


12 


ADDRESS. 


memory we meet to cherish. Let his public life and well- 
known opinions refute the unfounded aspersion. 

It is enough. High upon earth’s historic roll of men 
whose acts will resound through time, must ever be the 
name of Jefferson. Virginia gave him to the south. Let 
us, her children, commit his memory to history and to the 
world. Let us leave it where it is, fresh and green in the 
hearts of our countrymen, there to bloom forever. .Bright 
is the halo over yonder mountain grave, and treasured every 
memorial of that spirit which even now seems to be look¬ 
ing down upon us. Yes, “the hand that traced the charter 
of independence is indeed motionless, the eloquent lips that 
sustained it are hushedbut the lofty spirits that con¬ 
ceived, resolved, matured, maintained it, and which to such 
men “ make it life to live”—these cannot expire— 

These shall resist the empire of decay, 

When time is o’er and worlds have passed away— 

Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 

But that which warmed it once can never die. 

The states are in duty bound to enable the people to dis¬ 
charge the obligation due from them to the Constitution ; 
for if the primary object of all government be the protec¬ 
tion of rights absolute and relative, aside from theory, of 
only two modes for its accomplishment, that one should be 
adopted which is demanded by the spirit of the times, and 
the progress of the age. The partizan and the demagogue 
who have been most loud in their harangues before the 
people—and especially is it true in this good old State of 
Virginia—for progress and reform, have, notwithstanding, in 
the hall of legislation, heedlessly, willingly, knowingly, in 
the face of truth, in the face of state pride, state interests, 
and state memories, placed their foot upon all intellectual 
advancement. You, gentlemen, will be called upon to de¬ 
cide either in favor of schools, or of poor houses, of colleges, 
or penitentiaries and jails—of a government misunderstood, 
and a constitution disrespected, or a government loved, and 
a constitution revered because appreciated—of a people ig- 


ADDRESS. 


13 


norant and degraded, or of a people educated and exalted. 
Political power, says Landor, has too often been jealous of 
intellectual, lest it mar its plans and projects, and often lest 
it attract an equal share of attention. Too often has it 
been that the incitement to the politician's protection to the 
cause of letters has been the pride of patronage, and not 
the advancement of learning, nor the honor they would 
confer on the country. But “ time, which antiquates anti¬ 
quity itself," will soon bear away upon its ocean bosom such 
mistaken ideas of an unenlightened age. It has become a 
proverb that the rights and institutions of a people are 
never so secure as when known and guarded by themselves* 
National refinement and improvement are the sources of 
national enjoyment. Spread out the map of the world be¬ 
fore you. The history and condition of every country 
dotted down there must convince one that where society is 
ignorant and depraved the government is a lifeless skeleton 
of form, or an inquisition of tyranny. The warnings of 
experience, and the pressing necessity of the times are de¬ 
manding at the hands of these states everywhere energetio 
action on this subject. The imports and exports of every 
land prove as well that intellectual development is insepa¬ 
rable from material and physical prosperity. 

Education, solace in sorrow, companion in seclusion, re¬ 
source in difficulty, sustaining friend at all times. Who 
shall number its advantages, or do justice to its untold 
blessings? It supplies us with enjoyment in the present, 
and is our purveyor of promise in the future. It brightens 
the face of nature when we rejoice, and multiplies all our 
pleasures in the more elevated and comprehensive concep¬ 
tions of our Creator. It makes man creative too in the 
exercise of faculties which otherwise would have been dor¬ 
mant, in conceptions which lift him above the sphere of 
earth, and bring him in closer affinity with Him. What 
would be the earth but a surface covered with green, if 
science had not unfolded many of its mysteries and en¬ 
gaged even where it has not gratified curiosity in the con¬ 
templation of others lying beyond the scope of human 


14 


ADDRESS. 


comprehension. What would be the heavens by night, but 
a plain studded with twinkling lights, had not science made 
the scrutiny of the starry firmanent a rapture, and led 
imagination to believe many of those distant orbs other 
revolving worlds; to beguile bereavement with the hope 
that in some of these we may yet meet the lost and loved 
of by-gone days, and renew associations which have only 
slumbered for a season to be there revived and enjoyed for¬ 
ever. What the universe on which we are born to act, to 
suffer and die, if moral culture had not made every object 
in it a theme for study, from the glow-worm beneath our 
feet to the glorious sun that illumes it—from the insect 
groveling in the dust from which man sprung, and to 
which he must soon return, to the seraph bending in adora¬ 
tion before the throne of the Most High. 

In politics, commerce, agriculture, and all the daily walks 
of human life, the mind of a people is reflected in a thousand 
changing hues and colors. When it shall have become 
pure and natural in its utterances, it will speak forth 
through a national literature, binding brothers together by 
ties never to be severed, subduing the arts of the agitator, 
and drying up the fountains of corruption forever. Men of 
science have told us of immense deposits of animal and 
vegetable life, beautiful, and, it is said, beneficial still.* 
The foilage and forest of literature which may overshadow 
us will be rooted in strata of decaying and decayed mind 
and derive their nourishment from them. And in the world 
of intellect, as in the world of matter, though vanity is 
written on all things, and oblivion dims the memory of man 
and his achievements, yet it is also sublimely true, that in 
both alike death is but the germ of life, and new forms of 
beauty and glory spring from the dust of desolation. 

The mission of the American scholar, whether considered 
in reference to the progressive development of society, or 
the preservation of this glorious old confederacy is no vain 
one. Alone he may be in the world unheeded now, un- 


* See Ed. Review, 1851- 


ADDRESS. 


15 


loved, without a single sentiment in common with the mul¬ 
titude, or day by day pouring his life-blood out for those 
whose gratitude, albeit, about to be given together with 
justice to his worth after he is dead and gone, does not now 
fall softly upon his heart to brighten his arduous way—yet 
glorious is his mission. Amid the labors of professional 
life, or in that retirement which we regret to hear, is so 
soon to receive one whose name has so long shed lustre upon 
this University, the responsibility of the man of letters is 
of no ordinary nature. The poet was right: 

The man whose virtues are more felt than seen. 

Must drop indeed the hope of public praise; 

But he may boast what few that win can— 

That if his country stand not by his skill, 

At least his follies have not wrought its fall. 

Far across the deep blue sea the pilgrim upon the banks 
of the Tiber gazes at midnight, in silent awe, upon tho 
hundreds of lights that look down upon him from the air. 
He stands before the Franciscan College of Kome. Hence, 
and from the universities of Europe, are sent forth annually 
men of intellect and genius whose theories and principles 
are, alas, too often—not always, for there are boasted excep¬ 
tions around us—tinctured with a servility deadly to all free 
institutions. Who then, that has looked upon that dome 
sleeping now yonder in the moonbeams, has not thanked 
God that it was ever put into the mind of Jefferson to rear 
here this temple of learning. Its worshipers will be com¬ 
missioned, like soldiers, to combat error and despotic forms 
upon the battle-field of mind; and to contribute to the for¬ 
mation of a pure and exalted public opinion—not the cor¬ 
rupt and popular breath of the day, but that public opinion 
which speaks the wisdom of ages, and whose throne is from 
generation to generation. 

The pyramids that look down upon the scorched plains of 
Egypt are symbols of past oppression, and the wanderer 
amid the architectural ruins of the olden time, hears naught 
in the moaning wind save the dead march of nations; but 
the scholar goes down into the buried ruins, and collects 


16 


ADDRESS. 


gems of thought which are to glitter forever in the diadem 
of progress. To unfold the true theory of government, and 
the social economy, to make known the benefits of solid and 
substantial conservatism, to build up a literature which 
shall calm and pacify now, and mould and form the man¬ 
ners of coming time, let him toil on: 

When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 

And the low night breeze waives along the air. 

In the present state of society, where there is need of all 
the holier influences incident to humanity, one should not, 
if he could, forget the silent but almost unbounded sway of 
woman. As no mere matter of form, I must be permitted 
to congratulate you, ladies, upon the influence which des¬ 
tiny and your own superior nature has given you over the 
affairs of the civilized world. Are the words spoken winged 
with thought, and the life beautiful in its teaching to bless, 
to cheer, to urge on to noble action, or are they rather like 
the tinsel of the summer butterfly, to be borne away by the 
first zephyr that crosses its course. I would not take woman 
from the sanctity of home to feel the shock of the world in 
its strife, nor place around her brow any other coronet than 
that with which nature has encircled it with her own hand. 
But I would take her from the novel with its false sentiment, 
from the glittering gew-gaws of fashion and folly. I would 
place them upon the highest eminence which Heaven has 
allotted them, as ministering angels, as the protecting 
spirits who are to guard the infancy, and fix the character 
of American citizens, as the vestals who are to guard the 
flame of liberty and animate its fires forever. 

The greatness and glory of a nation, after all, whatever 
may be its form of government, lie not in the landscapes 
which clothe the earth with beauty, nor in the professions 
of attachment which falsify the feelings of the heart. For 
what is it that the revolving seasons mark the foot-fall of 
time upon the surface of the earth ? What is it that the 
sun is bright, and that its cheerful rays fall upon this broad 
land of ours ? What is all this diversity of clime and 


ADDRESS. 


w 


soil, of mountain and plain? What, that a western land has 
given to the world Washington, and Jefferson, and Madi¬ 
son, and all the sons of liberty? What are all these civil 
and religious privileges which Heaven has vouchsafed us, if 
in hallowing the names of our fathers we cease to worship 
the God of us and them, to remember our inspired chart— 
the hook of truth—the hope of the world. Behold France; 
why, after all the revolutions of her wheel of progress, is 
she stationary and well-nigh hopeless ? Why, except that 
her reformations have all been external, and the unclean, 
unhappy, earthly spirit of the nation has never been exor¬ 
cised. Look to the continent of Europe everywhere. The 
petty states that border her south-west coast are only re¬ 
lieved from forgetfulness, as one excels another in some 
more refined act of cruelty. Look at Austria, with her 
Italian dungeons full of men of virtue. Austria, who 
would lock up the Bible and shut out hope from the world. 
Austria, who would repeat the imprisonment of the Madiai, 
and the cruelties of a Hayneau each moment that time 
marks upon the dial at Vienna. Aye, there were words 
spoken here by the Hungarian exile, he he as he may, and 
it is not mine to pass beyond the vestibule of the human 
heart, which ought to he written upon the very heavens as 
they bend over her to stare her king in the face at mid-day. 

Sir, it is by planting the hope of immortality in the 
human heart, and regarding this as a scene of preparation 
that the only effectual method is taken of transforming the 
character, regulating the conduct, and making true heroes 
and patriots of mankind. This land has been chosen as the 
missionary of the world to teach that gospel whose object is 
to bring man hack to the purposes of his creation, and make 
earth again the home of the pure. How necessary that this 
fountain of life should itself he pure! How important that 
its voiceless teachings should come from a national heart 
throbbing in harmony with the universe of God. 

This is a question which must come to each one of us, 
my fellow-students. Meeting individual responsibility, and 
seeking truth and loving it for its own sake, let us here 
3 


18 


ADDRESS. 


upon the threshold of life, before the mutterings of the 
storm are heard, and the waves of the troubled sea run 
high, adopt the faith thus brought incidentally before us! 
“ There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the 
vulture’s eye hath never seen. The young lions have not 
trodden it, nor the fierce lions passed by it! ” Make this 
wisdom your own. Then death will have no terrors for 
you, for a greater than he hath conquered it. You will but 
change your abiding place. Like the weary traveler, 
you lie down to rise again, to rise not to the darkness 
of night, not with the same cares upon you, but in the 
light of eternal noon. Beside the refreshing waters of the 
river of life, you will continue your journey and walk on 
unwearied for eternal ages through scenes of joy and 
bliss. 

A few words more, and the commission with which the 
Jefferson Society has honored me, so feebly and tremblingly 
executed, will be returned into its band. Dark spots rest 
upon our political map, like clouds scattered over an April 
sky, threatening danger and evil. And, as Robert Southey 
says, when the storm is gathering in the west and south¬ 
west, and those flowers which serve as gyrometers to man, 
turn their faces to the sun, there is no need of consulting 
the stars for what the very earth itself is telling us. There 
is a limit to human endurance. There are men who cannot 
bear to see their country taunted with the mockery of a 
Constitution. By a partizan warfare the election of the 
next president may be thrown into congress presided over 
by an abolitionist, with a gentleman of the same color 
chairman of every important committee, with a majority of 
its members pledged foes to the Constitution—what pro¬ 
phetic eye can foresee the result? Let southern men, irre¬ 
spective of party, gather around the states-rights banner. 
Civil war and disunion may be averted; God in his provi¬ 
dence grant it; but if it must come, let it come. For one, 
the humblest of the humble, yet loving the union, as it has 
been, as much as the proudest, sooner than see our rights 
invaded, our property torn away from us, our honor 


ADDRESS. 


19 


blighted, the homes of our childhood and of all that we 
have loved most dearly desecrated by the footsteps of men 
with honeyed words of friendship upon their lips in the 
name of a common brotherhood, and stilettoes in their 
sleeves for our best interests, foes to us and to the Constitu¬ 
tion; sooner than see this dishonor and eternal shame 
fastened upon this southern land, here I would pray,—here 
within these walls where the genius of literature sits en¬ 
throned,—here where the spirit of Jefferson dwells an un¬ 
seen guardian—here as honor is dearer than life—that “the 
ocean wave might be its sepulchre, and the orb of heaven 
forget where it existed.” 

Fellow-students of the University, by all in the past 
worthy to be remembered, by those spirit breathings and 
spirit hopes which bind us together in our student-career, 
and by brighter visions of the future, I conjure you to 
perform well the high duties which may fall upon you. Be 
it yours to keep steadily in view the polar star of our 
national existence. Be it yours to abide the time. If to 
live under what is and might be the best organized and best 
conducted government which the world has ever seen be a 
boon to be treasured, then will you have, as future citizens 
of these United States, the strongest inducements and the 
most powerful motives to rally around the old flag of the 
Constitution. To your impulsive, but generous and noble 
hearts I would appeal: 

Oh! save our country, save a nation— 

The chosen land, the last retreat of freedom, 

Amid a broken world. 

It is in the power of the young men of the country, and 
it is in their power alone. They will prove faithful, they 
will discharge the trust—they will save the union. No 
inauspicious omen may be seen in the acclamations which 
everywhere greeted the pacificator of the North, in his 
journey through the states, the messenger of woman, w T ith 
Washington as his theme, and the union now and forever as 
his object. The clouds of darkness which have hung, like 


20 


ADDRESS. 


the drapery of mourning, around the country so long, will 
be scattered by the coming of the glorious sun of reconcilia¬ 
tion, and the influence of free institutions will extend farther 
and farther. The dying glories of Home and the faded 
beauty of Greece will be eclipsed by the undying splendors 
of the new dispensation. Led by our example the provinces 
of South America years ago broke the chains of despotism, 
and the lowly Greeks caught the spirit of freedom as it 
trembled upon the life-pulse of the world. Already the flag 
which has so long waived from these blue mountains has been 
answered by a corresponding signal from the sun-set sum¬ 
mits of the West. The heathen beckon us to the land of the 
sun, and ocean’s islands wait breathlessly to catch an aura 
from off our altars. Germany, land of letters, will be a co¬ 
worker in the second reformation, planting the tree of liberty 
which is to overshadow the world, beside that of Christianity 
reared by the hand of the Saxon, and nurtured by the smile 
of Almighty God. France, unhappy even in her rejoicing, 
will come once more to unite in the heart-felt tribute of the 
nation to the memory of the stranger hero. Ireland, in its 
aphelion from the constellation of freedom, and perhaps not 
yet at the point of greatest obscuration, will in due time 
emerge into greater brightness than ever. Albion, the 
water nymph, once a foe, will meet her child of the wfllder- 
dess to shake hands upon the sea. Here the bright star of 
Hope breaks upon the world, and leads it to the enraptured 
view of a pure and spotless Christianity, hand in hand with 
liberty and culture of mind, waving the olive branch around 
earth’s remotest borders. 


















































































































































































































































































































